Clutter magnets in your house (and what to do about them)

If you do a big tidy in your home and 3 days later it feels cluttered again, you have come to the right spot. Some areas of our home feel like literal clutter magnets and I am going to identify 3 of the common spots that seem to have the magnetization problem, and I will tell you what to do about them.

First, we should look at the main causes of clutter.

Clutter #1 Cause

Your belongings do not actually belong. You own items that aren't actually loved and used. There are a bunch of reasons why we buy and hang onto such items. When we have lots of things we don't need, there's not much intentionality in what we keep so we disconnect from being able to properly manage clutter.

Even well-organized spaces can be filled with this kind of clutter. If the belongings shouldn't belong then you are just organizing clutter in with your loved belongings.

Clutter #2 Cause

Your belongings are not kept where they belong. In other words, you don't have a home for your stuff. The things you do want to keep can become clutter bunching up if you do not have somewhere to put them. If we don't designate a home for all our items, then tidying up becomes moving things from places they do not belong to other places they don't belong. This kind of clutter is not the same kind of clutter I spoke about in cause #1. It is really just the things we love and use, but don't know where to put them, so it bunches up as visual clutter.

 So what are some clutter magnets that might be in your house?

 Kitchen Counter

I am not talking about dishes, I am talking about the pile of random stuff in the corners or on the breakfast bar. Often it is wallets, keys, pill containers, papers, and a whole array of random stuff. Letting piles of clutter build on the kitchen bench is also not very hygienic because we can only clean around the clutter. Also, clutter breeds clutter. Because we see a pile of clutter, we can easily just do it and organize it into the corner rather than tidying up.

What to do about it: Start with putting everything on the bench away to where it belongs, then create homes for what is left. Some things are inevitably going to end up on the bench (maybe keys and coins etc) so instead of letting them have a field day on the bench, designate and organize, put on a tray, or even a plate for those kinds of things to go on and aim to keep the rest of the bench clear.

 Bathroom Bench/Basin

Our bathroom is where we take care of hygiene, grooming, and jazzing up our appearance but for many, the bathroom counter is a magnet for clutter. Most of us use many bathroom items each day and they can sometimes all end up piles up next to the basin. Also, making it much less inviting to easily wipe down because it is a whole effort clearing the space first.

What To Do About It: Put some music on, clean your bathroom floor and sit on it (maybe with a cushion) and sort out your under basin storage. You want to give everything a home and aim for the only things to live on the basin to be things that get wet like toothbrushes and soap etc. The things you use every day should be easily accessible like in the top drawer.

Bedside Table

Our bedside table is the first part of our home we see when we open our eyes and the same before we go to sleep each night. It can quickly become a dumping ground for everything we don't know where to put in our room. Some people have a whole JUNK drawer or drawers in there.

What to do out it: Your bedside table should serve as a pretty little station of we use in bed or put down from the bed. Give a home to everything in and on your bedside table. If you have a top drawer, make that for items you want access to in bed. If you aren't great at putting things away in drawers, have a bowl or tray of some sorts on the top of the table, that you can put things like jewelry or glasses.

So take the opportunity to demagnetize the pull of clutter towards these 3 areas of your home. A clutter-free home starts with just one area and improves from there. You could follow the action steps for one of the clutter magnets every night for just 3 nights and experience the calm and freedom of that change 4 days from now.

Peace, Love, and Happy Decluttering xx

-Steph